Excerpt: When Dawn Breaks

"What..." she cleared her throat, forcing the breathy note out of her voice. Calm, Ilaria, calm, she silently chastised herself; you're not a debutante any longer. She tried again. "What do you want, Dominic?" There, that was better.

"Merely to see how you fare, sweetheart." He looked over at her, his gaze nothing short of wide eyed innocence.

Sweetheart. She gritted her teeth at the thrill of pleasure that rocked through her with that single word. "Don't call me that. I'm not your sweetheart, Dominic." The infernal man truly would drive her mad.

"Are we going to argue then?" Dominic arched a brow in question, looking not the least bit perturbed by the notion.

"Of course not," she snapped in irritation.

Dominic grinned.

Damnation! She sighed and rolled her eyes in surrender. "I'm simply very busy today and do not have the time, nor the patience, to deal with callers. I didn't meant to snap at you."

"Ah."

"Ah?" Ilaria frowned and stepped further into the room.

"I had wondered why your man put me here." He lifted his arms to indicate the room and grimaced. "I thought you'd gone blind."

"You mean you don't like it?" She felt a smile twitching at her lips and could not resist teasing him. "But it's so..."

"Ghastly? Terrible? Apoplexy inducing? Good God," Dominic broke in, shuddering in exaggerated horror, "there is no word to describe the horror of this room!"

Ilaria laughed despite herself and the subtle tension that had thus far marked the conversation all but vanished. "It is ghastly," she admitted, glancing up at the lilac swans dancing across the royal purple ceiling.

"Incredibly," Dominic agreed, his voice solemn though amusement danced in his eyes. "It's good to know that you're just angry at me and not blind, though. I would have had to beg Adaire to have you committed to Bedlam had you confessed to liking this room. It's truly unfathomable."

"I'm not angry at you," Ilaria jerked her gaze back to his in protest, horrendous purple swans forgotten. She cringed inwardly at the ease with which that lie came.

"Oh?" Dominic leaned back against the window sill and crossed his arms over his chest, shooting her a look of disbelief. "What, then, is the emotion that boils when one stupidly asks you about children when you're obviously still mourning the loss of yours?"

"What?" Ilaria gaped at him in shock, her mind reeling at his question. How had he known?

"Had it been me, I certainly would have been angry. Furious even." He glanced over at her, his expression shuttered, his voice deceptively soft. "Wouldn't you?"

The relaxed mood that had so recently begun to build shattered.